Monthly Pick: The Essential Asheville Date for February 2020

Valentines Day. It’s the day of love that’s littered with waxy chocolates, gushy cards, overly expensive dinners, high expectations, and cute (or cringe-worthy) clichés but, if you and your forever-date are like us, the type of lovebirds that like zombie flicks, strenuous hikes, board games, and a good ‘ole Murican competition, then the classic V-day dinner date might not be on the menu. It isn’t on ours either.

Beer and activity double date night at Axeville and Catawba Brewing.

Axeville at Catawba Brewing

Instead, I get to swap a tight, fussy outfit for jeans and a flannel, and he gets to comb out (not up) his 5-month old five-o’clock shadow that brings out the lumberjack within as we head to Axeville Throwing Club, the new ax-throwing gallery located inside Catawba Brewing at Biltmore Village.

If you’re reading this and thinking “beers and axes doesn’t sound romantic,” let me paint you a picture…

Getting warmed up…

What’s so great about Catawba Brewing?

First of all, let’s start with the liquid aphrodisiacs that Catawba’s serving up on tap. They’ve got creative concoctions for every persuasion to get your excitement up and your guard down. My first beer was a beet Saison where the beet added as much rich earthy flavor as it did color. There were 2 reasons for going beety: 1. for the love of beets, duh. and 2. I was wearing burgundy so my outfit was spill-proof!

Sweetcheeks got himself a rosy pink Sangria Zombie. He may look like a lumberjack, but he drinks like a proper lady!

The selection was fantastic. Catawba’s taps ranged from IPA’s to sours, lagers to browns. The Biltmore Village location even showed and offered us their newest and trendiest creation fresh off the bandwagon, their flavored seltzers. I’m a sucker for seltzer and, though I was in a beet beer mood that night, now I have a fantastic reason to return.

Both of our beers went down a little too easy, but the axes weren’t going to throw themselves, so we settled in for round two. Now, our juices were flowing…so we’d soon be throwing.

The Man of Axeville

Lucky for us we came on a night that gallery was manned by “The Man” himself, owner and operator of Axeville, Glen Merchant. Babes, the gentleman he is, let me get comfortable with my surroundings first, so Glen stepped in to introduce me to that sexy hunk of metal on that thick wooden handle.

The man of Axeville Throwing.

In the most friendly, helpful, and genuinely unpatronistic way (hear that, dad?) Glen proceeded to empower me with confidence that I could be a contender in the underground ax-throwing world. And really…what’s sexier than feeling powerful and confident holding a sleek silvery weapon and feeling Sasha-fierce-as-hell?

Three practice tosses in, and a chalk mark to throw from, and the blade had sunk satisfyingly into the wooden target wall. I was instantly addicted. Honey Buns was beaming at me with pride. No time for fan photos, I had to continue throwing!

A most addictive activity.

Getting the swing of it, Babes joined in beside me. Good lord is it sexy to watch your man weald an ax! I quickly understood the loving looks he was shooting me from behind the throw line. A bit of electricity flows throw your body when you let go of the handle at the right moment and hit the target just right. BULLSEYE! There’s always time for a photo when you hit your first bullseye!

Time to get competitive! The lanes are conveniently sided and they even have a scoring diagram and a handy-dandy chalk scoreboard.

My throwing arm told me when our hour was up, but we were in no rush to leave…We cuddled up with our last beer on the living room set-up stylishly arranged by Axeville and took a couple of cute pics. We’d had a unique and memorable date that teemed with more raw sexiness than Channing Tatum caught in a rainstorm and we didn’t want to soon forget it!

Team ax throwers!

A few Pro Tips:

The cage is beer-friendly and welcome inside. Make sure to bring a full pour of your favorite in with you!

$15 gets you a solid 30 minutes, but for only +$7 you get a full 60 mins! You’ll want the extra time…Time & Axes fly when you’re having fun!

Easiest tactic to throw him off his game is with an Anna Kournikova-meets-Zena scream when you launch your blade.

What does your next date night look like?

So, take a page from our playbook and skip the dinner and instead surprise your man with a fun and flirty night of blades and bullseyes…It’s a HIT!